Joining us now is Shelle Winkley, former prt broadcast meteorologist and current weather and climate engagement specialist at Climate Central. Shelle, thanks for being with us.
Yeah, Joyce, thanks for having us and happy to help where we can.
Such a busy time right now, especially here in the Northwest. First, I want to start with this atmospheric river. Why is it so different from storms we typically see in the Northwest?
Yes, so this one is a little different, especially when it comes in terms of the length, not in terms of duration of how long it rained there for you in Washington state, but how far this thing stretched back into the Pacific Ocean. So when it has this longer tail, this longer jet that was the atmospheric river, it allows it to collect more moisture. It's more powerful, and we can see what we saw with this one, which is all of the rain, all of the wind that we experienced.
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So much rain. We're looking at visuals right now, just video of some of the areas that have been flooded.
Which areas remain at the greatest risk, say over the next 24, 72 hours, and how long is this event expected to last?
Really, I mean, when you look at how much more rain is still possible as we go through the next couple of days, so a couple of things we have to watch for is one, yes, some places have receded, the waters have come down, but that ground, that soil is exceptionally saturated. Which might sound like a good thing considering the drought that was in place, but now any additional rainfall, especially if it comes down as quickly and as heavily as what we saw last week, that's just going to re-cause those flooding concerns once again.
So even if you didn't flood in the last one, again, it comes down to those rainfall rates, but specifically how saturated that ground is. There's just not a lot of places for that water to go other than to collect where it is or to rush through the ways we get water out of out of the city or out of our natural landscape.
And so that I mean so perfectly leads me to my next question concerns in the days ahead like landslides, more urban flooding, the impact to the snowpack in the Cascades, what should we be looking for primarily and be concerned with?
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Yes, so the heavy rainfall is going to be one part of it. We understand, you know, the temperatures that are still coming along with the atmospheric river event, the temperatures that are coming with the rain that's moving in, yes, there was some snow there, but a lot of that rain, if it does fall on that snowpack, it can also potentially create some more melting that's going to only create more flooding that goes along with it.
So we've taken on a lot of water, and again, in a time of drought, usually we say, hey, bring it on, but There's just nowhere for that rain to go, so even amounts that are a fraction of what we got last week can cause bigger problems just because of the amount of rain and how waterlogged things are.
Do you expect we'll see significant slides?
It is possible, you know, that that soil is loose that you're showing pictures here of all the trees that are down as well. That's another aspect of this is that it's going to be really hard for the ground to hold on to those root systems.
So as the wind blows, as a little extra rain comes, even our hardiest of trees, healthy trees, can even topple over because of how saturated the ground is.
I want to talk about this study out of NASA saying that we're going to see fewer atmospheric rivers in the future, but the ones that we do experience are going to be more powerful. Tell us a little bit about that.
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It's really interesting. So this is a study that looked all the way to about 2100, and we understand that atmospheric rivers globally there's a chance, there's a likely probability that we're not going to see as many of them, but like we experience with hurricanes, like we experience with floods outside of atmospheric river events, is that with climate change our extreme weather events are becoming a little more extreme. We're taking what is a natural weather event, a natural phenomenon, we're turning it a little more unnatural.
So what else this study found was that While we may see slightly fewer atmospheric river events, when we do have them, when they occur, when they impact our daily lives, the rainfall can be heavier, as well as the wind can be stronger. So these atmospheric river events can grow in length and width, so we're covering more area, we're picking up more moisture by about 25%, and what that effectively is projected to do is that occasionally, In extreme atmospheric river events like the one we experienced last week, we could see as much as double the impact of heavy rainfall and wind that come along with them.
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And when you're talking about impact, flooding across the state is already so costly. Your group Climate Central forecasting continued losses already in 2025, damages totaling more than 1.5 billion, and you expect that to grow every year.
Yes, it is possible every single year that we could see these big events. Now again, I want to point out it's not necessarily going to say that it is going to occur every year, but As we continue to, you know, grow in terms of population and where we're putting our building, one of the reasons that we live in the Pacific Northwest is how idyllic it is, but we're putting ourselves in areas where we know that the weather is going to intersect with our life. The other side of that too is as the atmosphere continues to warm, our rain events can get heavier.
For every 1° F of warming, the atmosphere essentially. becomes a bigger sponge. It can hold on to more moisture, and when you get the right weather event like an atmospheric river that we're seeing here recently, when that unlocks that rainfall, that rainfall can get heavier, and then it intersects with our buildings, with our infrastructure, with our roadways. That's where that price tag comes up.
And not to say that it's all about the money and it's all about the price tag, but we understand. That's our life. This is the places we live. This is the way we get away from flooding events. And so we understand by the economic cost that comes along with it. One, we're going to have to float those price tags in order to rebuild after floods.
But two, this is where our life is intersecting with these extreme weather events. Shell, I'm almost out of time, but I just have to get this question; answer as brief as you can. You said two words during this interview climate change and warming. Is this the result of climate change and global warming?
Look, this atmospheric river event was always going to happen, but what we understand is that with climate change, as we warm our planet, they become a little heavier, so a little extra moisture can fall, and that's what we're seeing here. This is the last, but why is this one different? And it's because of climate change. We have to leave it there. Meteorologist Chelle Winkley, weather and climate specialist from Climate Central, so appreciative of your time tonight. -- Thank -- you. Yeah, thanks for having us. END
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